


A Matter of Time

by ferix79



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, Death from Old Age, Gen, Growing Old Together, POV First Person, Post-Canon, Present Tense, Prompto's POV, Slice of Life, bring the tissues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 05:00:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12269403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferix79/pseuds/ferix79
Summary: After you pass on I take responsibility for my own future. It’s hard, and I waste a lot of time on tears, but I live and laugh and learn and love for long after. I tell your story any way I can for another fifty years.It will never be enough.---Prompto tells Noctis about the rest of his life.





	A Matter of Time

**Author's Note:**

> This is something that has been sitting in my head for months and months...since December I think. I was feeling sad tonight so I decided to finally write it so I could cry a lot. And I did. 
> 
> I know a lot of people aren't keen on first person or character POV fics (and Im not either, honestly) but please give this a chance. The only way this story could be told was from Prompto's POV.

Every other Lucian King gets to leave behind a poetic, heroic story. Every other Lucian King gets to grow old aside their family and friends. Why did our story have to be different?

After you pass on I take responsibility for my own future. It’s hard, and I waste a lot of time on tears, but I live and laugh and learn and love for long after. I tell your story any way I can for another fifty years.

It will never be enough.

I publish every photograph I ever took while I was by your side. Well, okay, not _every_ photograph, but nearly all of them. Even the ones with bad lightning, or the blurry ones, or the ones that don’t show us at our best.

I make books of them; some of them published, some not. The public loves the ones that are published, with interviews from Gladio and Iggy and me. From Iris and Cindy and Aranea and Dino and Vyv and every other life you touched.

The more personal shots I keep for myself and Gladio and Iggy. In picture frames and photo albums and wrinkled old polaroids from high school. I try to make sense of every day we spent together. What will the years we gave each other ever be worth? Why did it have to end the way it did?

During the roadtrip we were always driving around like we were running out of time. Looking back, I find myself wondering why. What was so important that we didn’t stop and appreciate each other more?

That’s not to say we didn’t, which Ignis will often remind me. I guess everyone will always wish for more time.

I rely on Ignis and Gladio a lot, in that first decade after and for many more. We all serve on the new Insomnian Congress for some length of time—Ignis for the longest, of course, but Gladio and I give him a run for his money.  

We raise funds for a monument to Regis and Clarus. It feels right—it feels like something you would have wanted, because their story doesn’t deserve to be forgotten.

I speak out against the hate that rains down on immigrants from Nifilheim—MT program survivors in particular. I help arrange shelters and treatment facilities and educational resources and assimilation programs, but still I feel I haven’t done enough. You, Noctis, you could have done so much more if you only had time.

By some miracle, I outlive Gladio and Ignis.

Gladio passes away in the summer, a few months after turning 80 years old. He leaves behind a daughter with a family of her own, and of course Ignis, Iris and myself.

Ignis follows him peacefully less than a year later. His doctors are puzzled because he was healthy for his age. Their best guess is a simple one: a broken heart.

I don’t blame him one bit.

They’re buried in your Royal Tomb, right next to you. Of course, when I needed them most, they were right on time.

The house is lonely without them; suffocating almost. The silence leaves me to my thoughts, forces me to think things over. When will my time be up? Will I have done enough? Will they still remember you, when all of us are gone?

Oh…I guess I should show you what I’m the most proud of.

I establish the first private orphanage in Insomnia equipped to take in kids from the abandoned MT programs in Gralea.

I help raise hundreds of children—kids and toddlers and babies—all in various stages of recovery from the demon blood in their veins. Getting to see them grow up is…probably one of the happiest memories I have. Aside from all the memories with you, of course.

Every time— _every single time—_ we get a new kid I see someone in their eyes. I see myself or Gladio or Ignis. I see Cid or Iris or Cindy or Cor. I see Regis or Clarus or Luna or Ravus. Every time it’s the most painful but most exhilarating moment, to meet a child and see someone in their eyes.

Most of the time, I see you.

Oh, Noctis…I miss you so much.

I will question whether I’ve done enough, whether I did your story justice, until the end of my life.

But in that same vein, I can’t wait to see you again, on the other side.

It’s only a matter of time.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! This was something I've wanted to write for a long time so it's very special to me. I hope I did it justice. 
> 
> Obvs this fic is heavily inspired by "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" from Hamilton.  
> The line "What will the years we gave each other ever be worth?" is a near direct quote from the Mountain Goats' song "Half Dead". 
> 
> [my tumblr](http://ferix-writes.tumblr.com/)


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